Jason Kidd Accused of Getting his Grope on

If boxing is how you make your money, you hit the bag during training sessions to practice your form. If you play baseball, you visit the batting cage in the offseason to keep your swing fluid. If golf is your game, you wear those goofy-ass pants tucked into your socks. I lived in Scotland for nearly a year as a child and was unable to discern the reason for this, but that’s evidently how those dudes roll.

What if you’re an NBA point guard, though? How do you ensure you can throw a pass that would knock the foam off a latte from thirty feet after months away from the hardwood? How do you keep your handle sharp following a summer of rest? Well, as a point guard with college experience (in England, admittedly, where basketball is as popular as flossing), I’ve found that the best way to prepare for the new season is to strengthen your fingers and wrists.

Personally, I favoured the combination of a heavy gripper and a powerball to tone up my primary tools as a ball-handler. Evidently (or, as I’m legally obliged to write, allegedly), Jason Kidd has his own methods for keeping his mitts supple and strong, as the following report suggests.

A police official confirmed news reports that the woman told police Kidd approached her inside the club and, without warning, grabbed her crotch. She said when she tried to fend him off, he kept grabbing her until she was forced to leave, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation hadn’t been concluded.

It’s a shame this had to happen, and for several reasons. Having lived in Manhattan (Harlem still counts, right?) and seen the clubbers make their way home after a night of light refreshments and disco dancing, I’ve been led to believe that under certain circumstances a degree of crotch-grabbing is acceptable, particularly when the grabber is what one might term a “millionaire athlete”. Indeed, some young women – and I warn the more morally conservative among you not to read on if you’re of a weak disposition – actively seek to, uh, share a cab home with NBA players and such. It’s sad, then, that Jason Kidd may have overlooked such types and tried to take a trip south of the border with a lady unappreciative of his advances.

Kidd spokesman Scott Miranda said the accusation was "a complete fabrication and it is sad that someone would make something like this up."

If it is, in fact, just a tall tale, it’s another in a long line of unfortunate incidents for J-Kidd, from his disappointing playoff exits to his high-profile divorce to whatever head trauma caused him to don this outfit: [I’ve edited the image for the purposes of maintaining public decency.]

As always, it’s a game of wait-and-see at this point, with the likelihood being that the case will quietly fade into nothingness like so many before it. Still, it’s a kick in the dick for Kidd after his domestic abuse charge, and even if he doesn’t end up paying his accuser to take a hike, it’s likely his pockets will suffer regardless. Even when such cases are dropped, they’re usually accompanied by a short-term dearth of endorsements for the athlete in question, meaning it might be a minute before Ason (no “J” – get it?) is cashing in on advertisements for Stone’s spandex active wear. At least we can draw one positive from this affair, then.